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There has been a remarkable shift from paper-based portfolios to e-portfolios. E-portfolios enable pre-service teachers to compile and formulate digital presentations that can be updated over time. Therefore, this study explores the adoption of e-portfolios to enhance self-directed learning among pre-service teachers. This study is located within the interpretive paradigm, and an exploratory case study was adopted as its research design. Social Cognitive theory serves as its theoretical lens. A sample of fourteen third-year business studies pre-service teachers from an open distance education institution in South Africa was selected. An online open-ended questionnaire was sent electronically to the sampled pre-service teachers. Thematic analysis was used to analysed data. The study found that e-portfolios encourage pre-service teachers to be self-motivated, manage time, and complete the learning activities independently. The recommendation from the study is that teacher educators should increase their use of e-portfolios to assess pre-service teachers during teaching practice.

This autoethnographic (AE) paper draws directly from a national collaborative project called the New Academics Transitioning into Higher Education Project (NATHEP), which is funded by the University Capacity Development Grant (UCDG). We adopted evocative and narrative AE methodology to confront, interrogate, and uncover our own biases, assumptions, and preconceptions of induction before NATHEP, how it is now, and how it should be understood and conducted after being part of the NATHEP project. Our AE showcases our critical and reflective thoughts on the learning acquired throughout the journey, consciously and intentionally asking ourselves whether the NATHEP journey was worth it and how it benefitted the induction programme we conceptualised and implemented. Through a combined autoethnography study design and technique, we were able to gather qualitative data from the two of us and present it as written reflective narratives. Together, we developed an open-ended questionnaire in which we asked questions that sought to elicit our experiences throughout the journey as a way of reflecting on the overall learning acquired by being part of the NATHEP project. Our responses and narratives are reflectively and thematically analysed to make sense of how we interpret our eventful NATHEP journey thus far. We conclude and submit that this paper has implications for academic development practice and academic developers who aspire to be reflective practitioners, constantly reflecting on their practices to dismantle and disrupt cultural tendencies in their quest to transform their context of work and induction practices.